Keeper of the Bulldawg Victory Bell seeks help

By LYNETTE SOWELL
Cove Leader-Press 

For more than a decade, the Bulldawg Victory Bell has been a not-so-silent spectator on the sidelines at Copperas Cove Bulldawgs football games. 
The keeper of the bell, Angel Valencia, is now on a mission to refurbish the cast-iron bell that he originally painted and fixed up some years ago. With the new turnover at with a new football coach and athletic director, Valencia thinks it’s time to give the bell a facelift. 
“The bell needs to be refurbished. It doesn’t have a real good ring to it anymore. I think we’d like to get it painted a metallic gold instead of a yellow gold, put some new lettering on it, fix up the trailer and get a nicer trailer,” Valencia said. “All the things on the handle that turn the bell have eroded.”
Valencia also said if his effort does well enough, he’d like to get another smaller bell to put along with it, and that would be the bell to ring and the victory bell would be more of a symbolic thing. 
“You can get smaller bells the size of a lampshade, that sound really good,” Valencia. “That’s a second option, but I’d have to talk it over with people that help me.
“I will look into seeing what it costs get it refurbished. That bell is one big hunk of iron. But, the priority is to make it look good. One thing we could do is turn it and beat it with a hammer, and you can get a good ring. But the place where the clapper rings, is worn.” 
Valencia, an assistant pastor with Refuge Ministries at the church’s Killeen campus, has been a longtime fan of the Bulldawgs and shared how he came to be caretaker of the bell. 
“Someone was telling me years ago we had a bell, and I looked up articles on it. Nobody knew where it was. Then someone told me they think they saw it years ago behind one of the buildings at the junior high. I found it, covered up with vines and leaves, you could barely see it. So I pulled it out, got it cleaned up and painted it.”
Valencia said he began taking it to games and it became a thing, and his son helped him ring it when he was in high school. 
This summer, Valencia plans to make the rounds locally to raise funds to take care of the bell. He can be reached at 254-258-7505.